Do I care enough? And why I love my parents (I like this post)

This evening I rang my family.

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a bad person at IM, 'cause people often struggle with the tension of prioritising family and friends and God and study and social and work... etc. And the common thread is how important family is to everyone, and how people desire to more be close to their family.. and I sit there thinking.. woops.. Should I struggle with this? Is it bad that I have not once missed my family? Or wished I was at home? Or needed to call my mum to pour my heart out? And while we're there Ms. Sonya, why do you not want to go home in the September holidays? Eh? Why do you feel so happy? It sometimes feels like everyone else (in class) has a strong desire to connect with their family in the midst of business.. and I'm like.. hmmm.

Here's the thing, right? I love my family. I am looking forward to seeing them in five weeks, for a week. And I do enjoy chatting to them. But I call or they call about once a week.. and its.. fine. And you know what? They seem fine with the arrangement too. I think my parents always knew that once I left home, I wouldn't be running home every five minutes. Mum and Dad don't complain at me about our new relationship since I've left home.

And I find it hard to empathize, too. One of the girls in IM - her sister and brother have just moved overseas, plus she's moved from very-small-town NZ to Auckland as well, all within three months, from a close family. I know she's found it difficult, and misses them a lot, and talks to them a lot. But often I end up getting off the phone from my whanau and just feeling.. more stressed than before.

But I sit there, listening to her, and struggling to understand! And my mind wanders, and I just end up pondering myself and if I'm doing something wrong or bad or if I don't love or care enough?

I did worry actually, for the first month. A lot. Because I would talk to Mum and Dad would just be yelling/talking at her and I would be like oh maaan what I do? It's hard to talk to one parent while the other is constantly at them. And now, out of home, I get told every single little concern my parents have with my younger brother, like tonight I got a detailed description of how they thought he'd come home at three for a family function but he biked home at one in the morning.. He is leaving home next year. When I was at home I carried/helped explain to my parents my brother's behaviour, reassured them bla bla.He's doing just fine. In fact, I hear of random AWARDS he's got - this sounds awful but I can't ever recall my brother getting awards? He sold some art at an exhibition at age 12, that was cool. But this year he's won a silver model at the Junior Hospitality Awards and WON first-place in the soap box competition (he mimed while his friend spoke) of a talent quest at the Opera House and gained his First Aid Certificate and.. cool man. I feel now like did I overshadow him? Did he not want to try because I got the attention? Maybe. Or I think its more that this year he's in his element - the school is letting him do the subjects he wants.. hospitality and art and photography and geography as opposed to science and EXAM English which he hated both of. I think he also sees the end sight of end of Year 12 as freedom so he is doing what he loves, well.

Things helped at Easter Camp. The speaker encouraged us to close our eyes and  think of Jesus, in a physical sense, in a situation that worried us? i think. Anyway, it was like Jesus was at the door of my house back home - standing at the front door - which is also at ninety degrees to my bedroom window and he said to me

 "Sonya, you may not be here but I am."

I have often felt like I carried aspects of my family but that has helped a lot.

I THINK: also a lot of the reason I have not been hard out into missing and wanting to be with my family is that my parents, my life, my community, my school  have prepared me well for life as an independent young adult.

 I have always known the value of money, have paid for most things myself (or worked to get scholarships which have funded things) and, especially in the last two years, have found and made the opportunities in my life, without my parents providing these for me.

Mum and Dad never stopped me growing up. I think i grew up well - a little too fast, sometimes.

I have never ever heard the term daddy's girl in my house. Dad, for as long as I can remember, has described me as, and expected me to, be and act mature. I don't know if it's true, but he tells people I act older than my age. And that helps, when a father has that confidence in your ability to function independently.

And so when I started travelling around, starting with bussing to Wellington at age 16 to stay with a boy I had met at Easter Camp, for a week, they let me. They didn't ring me every day and as time passed, they didn't ring at all. There was the "I've arrived" text and the "my bus arrives in Hastings at 7pm" text at the end. My parents didn't expect me to plan everything in advance: they trusted that I would sort out rides home from parties and buses home from travels. They always showed me a high degree of trust - and fliiip, that helped me grow up.

 Yeah, I did stuff they wouldn't approve of. But even when they found out that I'd done 'bad stuff' they didn't change their expression of trust. Mum and Dad were, also, incredibly genuine and nice towards guys that I would bring over. While my uncles would 'joke' to their daughters/daughters boyfriends about having guns and knives and hurting boys.. Dad wouldn't tolerate any discussion like that. When uncles would tease me about guys, Dad would stop them, always being my number one defendant, defending my choice of male friends, always commending them, always defending my capacity for responsible choices. He believes in me.

 I recently found out one of my uncles made his daughters boyfriend sleep in his WARDROBE when he stayed over (i.e alone with the dad, in the one-roomed top storey of the house): Mum and Dad thought this showed a high degree of mis-trust and wouldn't help  the young couple make responsible decisions for themselves. Way to demean a young man.

There was a time, there, when I struggled and struggled with the fact my family does not express love through words. Words of affirmation are one of my main 'love languages' so you have a young girl saying: 'Daddy am I pretty? and a teen saying 'What do you think of my hair?' to which Dad would often grunt back: 'It's interesting,' in a nongenuine tone. It sucked more when friend's fathers would call their daughters (and me) beautiful, and then express wild dismay at the fact my father would not do the same. Gradually, though, two things happened. I realised my self-worth was what God, my heavenly father, thought of me - and his affirmation was me was endless and unconditional, and also 2) A few boys/men also constantly affirmed my outer and inner beauty. Not that I advocate turning to guys for your beauty self-worth, and it wasn't a large part - but it does help when you have good male friends who believe you are beautiful no matter what, and tell you so. I don't believe I turned to guys as a replacement, more that good men and boys affirmed what God was working on. Now - I think I have one of the healthiest self-esteems/self-awareness and self-acceptance of all the females I know. And my father rarely called me beautiful. But you know what my Dad DID DO? He would tell me he admired, respected the DECISIONS I made for my life. It;s on my 16th/18th birthday cards - he approved of my friendships, also. "He who walk with the wise grow wise." And when Dad made comments like that he showed me what really was and is important. To make wise decisions and to have good friendships.

When my extended family would encourage marrying young- and talk as if that were the norm - Dad would remind me he didn't expect me to follow that pattern, but to be in no hurry. I remember asking Dad for an age I was 'allowed' to have a boyfriend. In Christian circles, at the time, it seemed every parent put an 'age' on their daughters, normally 16,17,18. Dad refused to give me an age, instead encouraging me to not get serious too young. Therefore, because I did want to please my parents, I never got around to dating seriously, once I realised I didn't want to settle and be serious while young, either!

I do remember Dad being angry/shocked/arguing with me when I was 16, and determined to go to university. Which, to a father trying to get by on a sickness benefits, and knowing the knocks of life, was probably scary: his first response was : HOW ON EARTH WILL IT BE PAID FOR? And his assumption I would work and get married was, probably valid, when you're living week to week like they were and are. So we shook on it: he would pay for the wedding (whenever that comes around) and they wouldn't pay a cent for me, my life, housing, studies after I left home. It was all good for me - I wasn't expecting a cent after I left home, and I wasn't expecting for any money for any possible wedding, either! He is still saving five dollars a week, in a jar in a safe, two years later. I told him tonight can we please put it in a bank account - it could earn quite a bit of interest by the time I end up marrying!

But after that, and when God started providing scholarships and funds, he was my biggest supporter. And later on, when I decided to put uni aside for a year, to move to Auckland and do a random gap year at bible college called Intermission.. he was all for me making that decision, while Mum wanted me to do the more orthodox route of English Lit at the closest university. While Mum tries to remind me to stay close to home as I grow older and wilder and less limited by my upbringing, Dad tells me he half-expects me to live overseas anyway - so not to worry. It seems like it was a long time fighting with my father for the right to go to uni - and there was a long time of proving myself as adequate for that. And so when I told my parents, last year, I might not even go to uni, if God clearly called me somewhere else - Mum freaked, while Dad - he didn't remind me of my struggles, he was basically like - do what you love, and make sure you know God's in it all. Sometimes I have felt like my upbringing tied me down - the constant talk of the importance of marrying young from my Mum's family, the constant awareness of our lack of money and government-dependence - but, along with truly amazing schoolteachers, I feel like Dad has given me the greatest permission to fly far, and free.

When I was fifteen, I was sprung by a friend's mum, who read her son's phone and realised what naughty stuff we had got up to a massive summer Christian music festival with people we had met of the opposite gender.. Her text to me detailed she would be notifying my parents. I was petrified. I'd actually been quite open with them during this summer of rebellion (and doing my fingers at the church and Christianity, effectively: I was an angry little girl during this time, and frustrated at what I saw as a lack of authenticity) so they probably assumed I hadn't been an angel anyway. I sat them down, told them exactly what I'd done and why my friend's mom was so angry, and I will ALWAYS ALWAYS hold their reaction in my heart as an example of love and grace (CHURCH: LISTEN UP!)

Firstly, Dad wasn't even interested in what i'd done. He didn't want to growl me for my naughtiness, he was only interested in what the texts had said that had got 'this woman so worked up.' And what he did? He said: Sonya, when I was young I did the same thing at a Christian camp (only worse, the girl told the leaders) okay so you don't want descriptions of my dads antics.. but it was reassuring for me at the time. And then he opened his bible, not to the messages of sexual immorality and sin but to the story in John 8 where Jesus tells the woman caught in adultery, that he does not condemn him, and to go and sin no more.. And that was all.

And with that, I went to my friend Paul's pool around the corner, where my friends were waiting for me.

I wish I could say that my friend who's Mum had been so angry, did the same thing. No. She almost sent him to counselling, or threatened it at least. She did not let him go to that music festival the following year. And I think of it this way - Dad's actions turned me towards Jesus, his love, grace and church, where my friend's mums actions pushed him further away from church. My parents carried on as if nothing had happened (for aren't stuff-ups a part of life?) and in turn showed me I did not have to be burdened with guilt forever. I think they saw that my embarrassment was punishment enough, and that if I were to come back to Jesus, and a life following Christ, Jesus would lead me there - forcing me wouldn't! A lot of this was because when my dad was 17, he also did the fingers at the Church for a long time..nine years because his Mum forced him to go. He tried all sorts - some random religions, rock n' roll, women.. lots. But then he came back nine years later, dissatisfied with what the world had to offer. And so the second my brother and I turned 14 (legal age for being home alone) Dad made it very clear Church was completely our own decision. He even encouraged breaks from established church or youth group for reflection or rest. My friend? - His parents punished him after that incident, for a long time, being grounded, not seeing friends, no phone, the lot.

As we were both, at that time, in a stage of anger and frustration at Church, our parents influence and reactions (and symbolically, how they represented the nature of Christ and God, to us) played a big part in our direction. And if you look at our lives now, three and a half years later, my good friend is now very far from God, getting drunk, getting stoned, and continually burdened by the disapproval of his parents on his number one passion, and amazing talent for, skateboarding. Me? I came back to God six months later - I was more broken, more vulnerable and hurting than before, and it was the love and healing of Jesus that brought me back, partially demonstrated by my parents actions towards me. They showed Jesus to me.

I like reflecting on this because it definitely makes me appreciate what my parents did for me.

What conclusions have I come to? 

1) It is okay that I do not miss or 'need' my family a whole lot. It shows that our relationship has naturally changed from that of child-adult to adult-adult. This changes at different times for different people, and it is probably going to be slower for my friends in Intermission, as a lot are still living with their parents, and have had different upbringings to me. My parents are happy with our relationship, as am I, therefore I do not need to feel bad when my friends express a greater desire than I for relationship with their parents.

2)I have come to understand that Mum and Dad equipped me well for adulthood, and that is also why I found it very easy to leave home, because they gave me the freedom to be independent long before then.

They chose to call me Sonya, meaning wisdom. I wonder if this subconsciously affected their treatment of me. It was as if they expected me to make wise decisions, instead of assuming I would make foolish ones.

I think, when my father eventually dies, I will say some of this stuff at his funeral.

Oh! And for fun and good laughs - here's a HILARIOUS picture of me at age 15 - two days before that music festival - angry, short-haired, and vulnerable - and posing with my friends. Oh - and one of my first jobs - a dancing theme-park Mascot

Look how far I've come.
P.S That was not my normal make-up xD


I like being Sonya.

I think that

We have a beautiful world.


Wilbur loves to say that life is perfect, but I simply cannot agree with that.


Whatever the world is, it has beauty. And part of that beauty is the diversity of languages.


Soy una mujer!


Hahaha.

I like creativity

My good friend John wrote this on my facebook, and I appreciated it for its sheer beauty.

"Sonya J (last name), we need to talk some time when I am not under the influence of alcohol or sleep or caffeine or time or stress or pressure or freedom or love. I feel all of those things at the moment, so I have gagged myself with these constraints. Craziness and dreamtime-sleep-stupor rule a world of chaos, and town is nothing but pacman for grown-up-children with the sleep pattern of a stoned owl. Pluralise everything, I want to add s's to every word but will resisit while I can.
How pretentious I am to even express my free-thought makes me hate this for its existence."

I have already half-analysed this like it is a poem. The juxtaposition of pressure and freedom.. The pressure of freedom.. yes..I love thinking.


Chelsea Hotel no. 2 - Leonard Cohen. Listening to this song reminds me of John also, 'cause sometime in the middle of the night we were posting back and forth and then I heard Leonard Cohen sing about getting head on an unmade bed and it became hilarious in my tiredness which I shared with him. It's funny how songs are moments.


I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

I bought fifty tea-light candles and put 43 of them on my windowsill.

 

I love this girl.

Some of my lovely lady friends. (and bartender)

I was just thinking how we were all dressed so modestly.

The lipstick on the mirror reads: "For a poor to adequate good time call (number)"

The Naked and Famous - Young Blood

We're only young and naive still
We require certain skills
The mood it changes like the wind
Hard to control when it begins


The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-betweens
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah


Can't help myself but count the flaws
Claw my way out through these walls
One temporary escape
Feel it start to permeate


We lie beneath the stars at night
Our hands gripping each other tight
You keep my secrets hope to die
Promises, swear them to the sky


The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-betweens
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah


As it withers
Brittle it shakes
Can you whisper
As it crumbles and breaks
As you shiver
Count up all your mistakes
Pair of forgivers
Let go before it's too late
Can you whisper
Can you whisper
Can you whisper
Can you whisper


The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-betweens
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
The bittersweet between my teeth
Trying to find the in-betweens
Fall back in love eventually
Yeah yeah yeah yeah

Taylor has informed me I am crazy.

Right now I am alone, in the middle of Auckland city, on a Saturday night. My friends are not coming for another two hours. I spent an hour in Borders, then got fed up and my head was full of poetry and frustration so I left.


I discovered that the worst place to look for the meaning of life is the poetry section in a bookstore. I had the most epic explanation for it at the time.
Sometimes I hate bookstores
I don't know what to read
I don't know what is bad and good
or what is worth picking up
I don't know where to start


Then I went searching for a moleskin. I feel like a retard just saying that, because it sounds like I'm trying to be some wannabe Hemingway or something. Na they just feel nice and are slim and I had nothing to write on. But Mag Nation was closed and I don't know who else sells them.


I always forget to carry a notebook. Then I end up buying 1B4s.


I then got kissed by an old fat man wearing a white chef's coat and a billboard and some green goggly? glasses. He then tried to dance with me in a convenience store.


This was a most pleasant experience.


He had directed me (his billboard had) to the White Lady which is a giant bus-thing that sells burgers. He even escorted me there 'cause there were some dodgy sorts around.


It is raining. What excites me is that my feet are not wet. I can see the raindrops sitting on top of my black leather slippers. This is because I own BEESWAX which is BEAUTIFUL and makes my shoes soft and rainPROOOF


Friendship has been bothering me. I know my life is going to be nomadic. Already I feel like my life is in limbo, living in a city that is not my home, and leaving for a place that is not my home, and leaving and leaving and leaving


Is that all I do? Leave? Never stay? I was always the wandering one. And how does that work with friendship? I enjoy people. When I meet people who I can talk to, who get me, it is amazing.


It is a good thing I enjoy my own company. I do spend a lot of time wandering Auckland city by myself and I
enjoy bus rides


Today in the bookstore
a man and a women
were talking about how they were worried their son
would ONLY KNOW THE LETTER D


Who is Sonya?

Dear friends

Dear.
Dear.
Dear friends.

This evening

I try to have hot baths to calm my head but then I get anxious calls of murders and sad families. One can't think of peace and sleep while one sits shivering watching candles die quietly and the pressing urge to pray, pray.

Would you go to war for me?

Sitting by the journals of Buried History head dancing with musty words, musty pages eyes asking brain to close brain refusing request Sometimes I wish I had a real bed after all

Creative Insomnia and Bizarre Words on a page

Hello. My name is Sonya Jasmine. I have a last name too. Anyway. I can't sleep. Why not, you ask? Ask sleep. Ask God. It is a problem. Taylor also doesn't sleep too flash so I asked him and he mentioned blogging. Good idea, I thought. Normally writing screeds of odd poetry gets me in a more sleepy state but I wrote four pages of very very odd summer reflections and forward-reflections (HUH SONYA WHATT) and it didn't help. So here I am. Sitting by the fire too by the way. Normally when I can't sleep I pray. Prayer is good. It's good to keep up conversation with God, continually. It's part of the whole relationship stuff. And listening to God is important too. But sometimes I find that its been hours and it ends up being 3am and non sleeping becomes almost painful and I'm just crying AT God to let me rest. So tonight I didn't pray about sleeping. I thought, as Taylor recommended also, that I should probably embrace this bizarre creativity in me that comes out in the night, and in states of tiredness, and how my brain thinks and goes all over the place when my body tells me to sleep. I have several theories as to why I can't sleep. A) I write much better poetry/stuuuff when I am exhausted. So it's my brain forcing me to use my.. gift? Awful word that. I always complain (to myself) that my poetry is far too literal. Well, when I am tired it takes on the appearance that I am on drugs. It is imaginative. It says teacups are long grass and that long grass is the meaning of chasing an old man around a yard. That kind of stuff. Which tends to work well in this postmodern world. Ah! I said it. Postmodern. Haha. I was reading some writing journal's guidelines for your writing bio and it was very vague but it was like OH. AND DO NOT USE THE WORD POSTMODERN TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF. I found this quite amusing. In my essay tonight I used the word.. premodern. Microsoft Word did not recognise this as a word. MS Word must be pomo then. Too much for its own good. Oh shut up Miss S.J.Clark b) As some may know I do not use a bed. I sleep on a mattress on the floor. Because I have rearranged my room in a stupid way that does not utilise space well, this mattress takes up most of the room. Therefore, when I am in 'bed' I am often reading intense theological texts like 'ChurchMorph' my current 'bedside reading . Research and you and I all know that doing study in bed is awful for sleeping as your brain connects bed with thinking and not sleeping - that unconscious state which is definitely not full thinking. c) I don't know. d) I don't overthink life. I don't analyse relationships crazy but I do lie in bed randomly planning ahead or pondering Like I wrote some crappy poem just before, just thinking like How will life be different this summer? My close school friends will return home from all around NZ and we all will have changed. Shani will not return - her family have relocated south, where she is studying. I will especially miss Shani. Will we rave like we used to? I have deleted a lot of my crappy pop music and now immerse myself in folk. We never used to drink much - will things change now they have been at uni in a more saturated drinking culture? And at the end of summer, when I pack up my life all over again, and my brother packs his up for the first time, and I move... again.. from the biggest city in NZ to a smalltown then to the capital city.. how will life change again? How will people, I, my brother change? How will my parents relationship change with no children at home? Change is good. And I embrace it. But I feel this summer will be different. I already feel way more grown up/adult than a lot of my uni friends even. Like in Pastoral Care class we're doing development of adolescents and adults bla bla and there's jibes thrown around the room about being an adult is paying your bills etc.. well I do pay my bills.. and us intermissioners are used as the adolescent example of not being like that.. but I dunno. I love being young and free to choose and not settle, to be transient. That is amazing. So I'll embrace that adolescent part, sure. But I don't like being boxed as immature and irresponsible just because I'm eighteen. My parents have sent me a grand total of twenty five dollars since I left home three months ago. Not that that constitutes grown up but I think I'm on a good path. And at the end of the day what? what Sonya? What happens at the end of the day? One is meant to sleep. It doesn't really happen. Man I am hungry. I keep gnawing my tongue, accidentally of course. I have learnt not to walk at night, in these parts. In these parts in these parts I am Sonya. Sonya is an interesting word Kids have mocked my name in younger days I am looking forward to being in Wellington once again. I know my paper is called Reflective CROSS CULTURAL Field Education MF602 but really I feel like I'm coming home

I am Sonya, hear me roar?

Sometimes I think about my name. When I read it, sometimes it does not feel like my name, even though I know it is my name. Other days I know it is my name. Absolutely. Completely sure. It fits me. Sonya means wisdom. Did you know? Sometimes I think my name is odd because I never hear it used in regards to anyone else, just me. That is because, while it not a rare name, it is not a common name either. At intermediate school, a blonde girl told me I had an ugly name. In front of everyone. Now I quite like my name. Today it is raining. Therefore, I am not going to walk to Carey early and study. I had the worst nights sleep last night. I'm convinced I didn't sleep. I kept waking and thinking and it was like my mind did not know how to sleep. This was bad. My hands are shaking so I better stop. Did I tell you? My wrists and fingers have been painful. This is a bad bad thing for an eighteen year old amateur poet and student.

My Current Most Played List on ITunes

Quite an accurate list of my current listening as I reset my library not too long ago. I am a great believer of different music for different purposes. I could choose to be embarrassed by my inclusion of crappy hip hop, but I won't. It has its function in my life. Hear Me Out - Frou Frou Always Like This - Bombay Bicycle Club Meet Me Halfway - Black Eyed Peas A Sunday Smile - Beirut The Upper Peninsula - Sufjan Stevens For The Windows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti - Sufjan Stevens Nantes - Beirut Lux Aeterna - Requiem for a Dream soundtrack Lua - Bright Eyes Marching Bands of Manhattan - Death Cab for Cutie Replay - Sean Kingston Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalez Your Hand In Mine - Explosions In The Sky After The Storm - Mumford and Sons Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens River - Akron/Family I Know It’s Over - The Smiths Skinny Love - Bon Iver Forever - Chris Brown Just Don’t Care - Dane Rumble Need You Now - Lady Antebellum Winter Winds - Mumford and Sons Guyamas Sonora - Beirut How He Loves Us - David Crowder Band (cover) Psychobabble - Frou Frou

Rainy Blog

Today I got a lovely dailybooth message from someone who said they liked my blog. I liked that, and it prompted me to.. blog. I rarely blog these days, as dailybooth is like a short blog. Today it is bucketing down from grey Auckland skies. My flatmate is home sick. We are both sitting by the fire in our pyjamas and the candles are lit and it is almost noon. I CHOPPED MY HAIR YESTERDAY Kind of actually hacked random bits off Now I realise I probably shouldn't have. It is very dark today. I have a lot of work to do.

Door Knocking is definitely not my favourite activity.

Listening to the music of my earlier raging years

I have almost lived here three months. Seems crazy. What have I done? -moved out of home, into a flat with complete strangers, to a city completely foreign and unknown to me. =D -went to my first Northern Easter Camp. -A+'d my first paper. -settled into Roskill Baptist. -went to 'town'. Almost got hit by a couple of cars. -sat in a few cosy bars with a nice drink and a good friend. -cried over homelessness. -got free furniture off the side of the road. -spent a lot of money on postcards xD -been a photography model a wee bit for arty friends. -Handsewed my first hem without a pro sewer watching over me! -sat in Mt. Eden crater as the rain fell, with Elysia. -read poetry at the Aotea Centre, to a weird audience. -ferried to Devonport. -bussed a lot. -drunk a bit of tea. -received money when I needed it, anonymously, radically. -I now have a chiropractor. -Got rid of my bed. Now sleep on the floor on a mattress. -LEARNT TO COOK!! -been dumpster diving. -acquired a lot of folk music. -worked at Women's Refuges etc :) -been to the Auckland markets. -Had some epic Skype conversations with some new good friends -READ On the Road, The Little Prince, Man Alone.. and others, I think. -went to a party with a completely purple painted face. -spooned. -been freaked out at crazy Auckland stuff.. now I realise I find it so normal. -watched New Moon and almost died bleerrgggh -sat on a beach/bay late at night and toasted marshmallows over a fire -been to Bethells and Muriwai Beach -decided what I'm doing next year - Wellington -won a large scholarship, randomly. -realised I don't like talking as much as I thought. -realised so much about how my upbringing has shaped me -realised its not bad to have money -realised its not bad to have ambitions -realised I am content -realised I am whole so I can help others -realised writing is in every cell of my being -realised God is hard to understand, but that's okay

Pain

Physically, I have been in a lot of pain lately. It has been quite hard. Then I fell down the stairs. But while I am in pain I am remembering that God is with me. He does not will my pain, He does not cause it. Yet he cares and he helps us endure.

Man Alone

".. Johnson was trying to work something out. He was trying to work out a restlessness that would not leave him in peace. He was thinking of Tom White and his machines, and Bill Jessup who would live and die there with his wife and two daughters, maids at the house, growing up and marrying and living and dying there, with Lincoln still a far journey to them, untouched by the cars going by and the aeroplanes overhead. He himself could never live anywhere again. He had tried to live and settle and things had happened to him. Now he could not do that again. He lived now to earn his living, and lying there he was thinking, trying to work out in himself what it was beyond that he could not want. There were thoughts within him that had not been there before. There were memories of men he had known and liked, men, black and clay-stained on New Zealand roads, sweating on steamer decks, paint-blistered, dirty and lice-ridden in the seamen's camp at Panama, tough, sceptical on New York docks. There was a desire in him now for a life that would give warmth and a meaning to these memories before he grew too old, for a life active, but with good food and good drink, and men moving, making something together." -John Mulgan. Man Alone. Selwyn and Blount, 1939.

NO.

I'm almost embarrassed by my lack of effort. I have left every assignment until the last day/last couple hours, and well, it was fine for my first essay, which got A+, but I can't keep that up. And the problem is: I'm loving the practical, the community, the doing stuff. But for the first time in my life.. I'm hating the academic. I used to love academic.. got some sort of kick out of writing a good essay on Heaney or media or whatever. Maybe its that what I'm studying can sometimes be boring. But.. as Mick said first week of IM: "If you can't do boring, you can't do life. You can't do discipleship." Because life is all about discipline. I often find myself not caring about my academic stuff 'cause I think that what I'm doing doesn't matter for the future.. like this isn't my 'proper' degree. But I know that I need to learn discipline. I thought I learnt it in Year 13.. but obviously not. I'm so angry at myself. Kinda like in Year 12 history where I complained about not understanding it, and annoyed everyone (I was new to history) then topped mock exams and people got more annoyed. And even now, with that first film essay, like it was 11.15pm and it was due at 12 and I'd written 100 words and Olivia was like SONYA and then I got 39/40. It's just WRONG. Maybe I need to fail miserably to learn a lesson. Then I hear about crazy, radical proposals.. and I'm just like YES. Finn - "Hey Sonya, lets move to New York next year and be poor creatives.." and I hear of John winning the Robertson scholarship to America and I think I JUST WANT TO TRAVEL! And then I get offered rooms in intentional communities (pretty much communes)in wild West Auckland where dumpster diving is normal.. Maybe I need a proper gap year - like one that is completely non-academic to get the itchiness out of my feet and to come back and appreciate the academic in all its glory. Or.. I need to learn some flipping discipline. For now, I need to read the book on which my report is due in 14 hours. And I want to get it done TODAY, SOON because I want to skype Taylor and chat to Olivia and bake cupcakes for the neighbours and BANK my cheque so I actually have money.. and.. and.. but its all about priorities. People often say I'm too hard on myself. But NO. I'm addicted to Sufjan Stevens. I'm ASHAMED. KNUCKLE DOWN.

I HATE THIS ESSAY

JUST END. PLEASE.

just got a phone call

I have been nominated for the New Zealand Young Woman of Potential Award. Crazy. Today I acquired sixty dollars, after praying desperately to God the other night for finance. I am learning to radically depend on this God who knows everything I need.

Beauty on Muriwai Beach

Spot the Sonya. My flatmate and I randomly decided to go to Muriwai Beach tonight, to take pictures of the sunset. We missed it, but it was beautiful anyway. I love how all the colours merged into one. It was so dark and everything was a different shade of grey. Dark dark dark. Nothing clear, just shapes, forms, colours. The water - black and foamy. Black sand. Cold. It is on the beach I feel near to God.

......

I was so sure I was over you. But you're still the only thing I can write about.

Peace

I am.. becoming aware of the need for silence the need to be silent more than to speak to detach the issue from the personal to live more at peace by saying less and being still when all is intense, to find INNER peace and to not jump to say my own opinion I think I am growing up If these are the only things I will learn this year (they won't, I'm sure there will be more) I would still be more than happy with what I got out of my $4500 fees.

This is me :)

I've looked at love from both sides now From give and take, and still somehow It's love's illusions I recall I really don't know love at all - Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now But that's good! And okay!

Jesus would have been a hippie

I was sitting in the mall on Saturday, and I couldn't buy anything. Jesus has been challenging me. Here is a fantastic article on freeganism and dumpster diving.

Alone Down There - Modest Mouse

How do, how do you do? My name is you Flies, they all gather around me and you too You can't see anything well You ask me what size it is, not what I sell The flies, they all gather around me and you too I don't want you to be alone down there To be alone down there, to be alone The Devil's apprentice he gave me some credit He fed me a line and I'll probably regret it I don't want you to be alone down there To be alone down there, to be alone Ah. I don't want you to be alone down there To be alone down there, to be alone

I love Smashproof.

South Auckland honest hiphop How do you put the actual video in the blog? Ordinary Life Brother Heart.

Dear, (middle aged) Man

Please explain, with detailed examples and analysis, what gives you the right as you sit in your car at the Onehunga Mall roundabout, to turn, smile and look me in the eyes and say "Nice butt," with a smirk on your lips and an unmentioned power in your eyes? I am still waiting for an answer. Plus, I was wearing trackpants.

Auckland #5 Dailybooth & COOKING

I dailybooth most days. Its like a mini blog with a "try to be creative" webcam shot. Comment below if you have a dailybooth, I'd love to follow you! I'M LOVING COOKING MEAN VEGETARIAN DINNERS.

Auckland # 4

Auckland #3: Make new friends but keep the old, for one is silver, the other gold

I haven't really thought much about people I have left. But today I came home from Carey, just so so tired. And when you're tired, you question. I lay on my bed and held my snowglobe. My snowglobe with pictures of Gerard and Lucy dressed up as reindeers holding silly signs. And I just thought Man. How good it would be to have Gerard to talk to right now. You know. Like when I am forming these new amazing friendships with people, I just think, aaah an old friend who understands and knows me really well, how nice would that be right now. And to hear Gerard's Subway stories, or his views on political issues or current affairs, or just to talk about anything, whether trivial or deep. I enjoy his company, no matter what the occasion. It is a friendship that been consistent. At school especially, he was the one person I could count on to talk intellectual/deep, when I needed or wanted that. And I know he liked that about our friendship as well. I love and treasure the new friendships I am making in Auckland, in Intermission and the like, but tonight my old friend Gerard was on my mind. I'm not going to forget him. Don't forget your friends. NOTE: It would only let me put the photos at the top. Any help with this? It hasn't done that before.